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The thing was. The thing was that piano had always been Brendon's first love. There was nothing quite like the feel of smooth keys under his fingertips, nothing like the solid, strong ring of each note. Nothing that could compare to the worlds created by each lilting melody. He loved to sing, and he loved his guitar, but if he had a choice in the matter, he was going to sit at the bench, feel the keys for inspiration, and let the ivories do the talking.
As a child, he sat on his eldest brother's lap as his mother played hymns during family hour, entranced. She taught him to play, fixed his little hands into position carefully, pressing his fingers into the keys. He had been awestruck; he was making those sounds, he was making music.
Music was where he went when he needed to be away; when his siblings were too much, when his mother voiced complaints against another poor report card, when his Ritalin made him feel hazy for hours and hours. It curled around him and kept him safe, took him out of his head until he could deal with it again.
When Brent took him to meet Ryan and Spencer, he felt like he was going to burst. He could make music all the time. He could make music that meant something and said something other than praise to God. It could be something he did for the rest of his life. They played and played and things were fantastic. He went home humming Ryan's melodies, handfuls of lyrics shoved into his pockets. He was happy.
His luck ran out faster than he had hoped it would. His mother found a scribble of lyric in his jeans pocket, something dark and bitter and coarse, and laid it in front of him at dinner, her eyes sad and damp. The pain in his chest was sharp, the guilt climbing up his throat thick. His mother cried, asked him what he was doing.
"Music," he said. "I'm just playing music."
The ultimatum came from his father. Brendon felt sick. Leave his music behind or leave his family behind. The choice nearly killed him. In the end, he likes to think he made the right decision.
The band took off. It was a flurry of shows and new people and music, music, music. Brendon loved every second of it, from the monotonous drives to the frenzied fans to the jam sessions with other bands. He played his keyboard at night and sang his heart out, yelling and cheering with the fans. It was magic.
They hopped from tour to tour, playing and playing and playing. The songs began to grate on his nerves, the familiar choruses making him cringe. It wasn't fun anymore. When Ryan said, let's write a new album, they said, yes.
Somewhere along the line, between the cabin and the next round of tours, music stopped being therapy, stopped being catharsis, and became work. It stopped being about love for the song and became more about the band and the fans and Ryan. It started being about words that meant nothing to him, started creeping out of the parts of him that were ugly and raw, the parts of himself he had never lingered too long on.
It ate at him. The stage felt like a prison, the screaming fans wardens in tight jeans and hoodies. He sang, mouthing out Ryan's words like a puppet, hands on the keys, pounding out the melodies he no longer believed in. At the end of the night, his keyboard was shoved onto the rack with the rest of the equipment, banged up and rattled as everything else.
Then came Shane. Shane with his quirky little smile and his crooked sense of humor. He laughed like he meant it and listened with everything he could give, stuck behind the camera but never behind the scenes. He was there for the laughing and the touring, there for the arguing and the yelling and the trashed songs and rooms. He kept the footage and gave out advice, and Brendon found himself laughing again. Found himself smiling real smiles and writing music as something real again.
Moving in together was almost natural. He took his things from the house that had been his and Ryan's and Spencer's and put them in the new apartment with something like joy in his chest. This was his new beginning. This was his starting all over and putting it back together. If Shane came with the package, that was only even better.
They painted the rooms by themselves, the paint on the floors and their clothes and in their hair scars from the paint war, and called friends to push and shove furniture around. They drew shells in the bathroom, apples in the kitchen. They turned the front room into a practice space, setting up Brendon's guitars and a brand new piano. It was Brendon's favorite place. He played and Shane watched, and the music was his again.
It wasn't a surprise when the band split. It hurt, but in a distant way. He had already known what was coming, even if he hadn't wanted to admit it. He couldn't meet Ryan's eyes, could barely return Jon's hug when it came time to part ways. It hurt, but it wasn't over. He wasn't over.
When Spencer said let's make a new record, Brendon said yes.
That was where he was currently; back at the stage of writing, of making words- his words- fit to new rhythms and melodies. He was tired, dragging through the days on caffeine and desperate energy. It was his turn to shine, his turn to prove himself as more than a mouthpiece. To prove himself as a musician in his own right. It was terrifying and freeing, and the smooth slide of keys under his fingers never felt sweeter.
The apartment was hot, the air conditioner busted, and Brendon could feel sweat across his bare shoulders, sliding down to gather at his hips, at the small of his back. He wasn't sure of how long he'd been stringing the melody together, how long he had been caught in the wave of I am not alone, and this is who I am.
His fingers worked over the keys steadily, picking out the melody that was nagging away at the back of his brain. He closed his eyes and hummed, lost in the soft sound. He shifted the melody a half step, smiling when it came together. This was what mattered. This was what he wanted.
A soft noise cut through, like the sound of footsteps on the carpet. Brendon opened his eyes again let the melody drift away.
When he looked up, the room was empty.